Minister takes issue with Lake Alice report

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 3

Minister takes issue with Lake Alice report

PA Wellington The Minister of Social Welfare (Mr Walker) has disagreed with an Ombudsman’s report which said that a 15-year-old boy's detention in Lake Alice' Hospital last year was unlawful. The charge was made in a report substantially completed by the former Chief Ombudsman, Sir Guy Powles, which was released on his behalf by the Chief Ombudsman (Mr G. R. Laking). The report was made after a complaint from the parents of a 15-year-old boy about their son’s detention and treatment in Lake Alice Hospital.

Mr Walker said that under the Children and Young Persons Act, 1974, the DirectorGeneral of Social Welfare had powers of guardianship “to the exclusion of all other persons.” It was unfortunate that the report had been released before it was discussed by the Departments of Health and Social Welfare, Mr Walker said, because there would be some differences of opinion between the departments’ legal advisers and “these should have been thrashed out before the report became public.”

Mr Walker said that it was too early to say whether he would recommend any changes in the law, but his department would prepare a report on Sir Guy’s findings. Asked if he thought the release of the report had done any damage, Mr Walker said: “There have been some fairly serious charges made, and it would be a pity if the confidence of the public in either of the departments was lost.”

Another point of contention in Sir Guy’s report was whether the parents were aware of the treatment, he said. “The court was aware of the treatment at the time of the guardianship order.” The report indicated that a passage had been removed from a Social Welfare Department file, with the implication that something was deleted to keep information from the Ombudsman, Mr Walker said.

“What the report did not say was that the passage deleted was only a facetious remark'about a legal man in a high place, and there was no alteration to the file on the boy,” he said. According to Mr Walker, Sir Guy had not investigated the case deeply enough. The report left several questions unanswered, he said, referring to the part which said that the boy ran away from his home back to the hospital. “If, as it is claimed, he was so badly treated, why did he go back?” Mr Walker said. “In my view Sir Guy has gone off half-cocked, because he has not gone into it deeply enough,” he said. The Health Department has reacted cautiously to the Ombudsman’s report.

The department’s deputy director general. Dr R. A. Barker, said that the report was being studied by his de-

partment and the Social Welfare Department. The Ombudsman had also asked for comment, and this would be sent to him as soon as possible, Dr Barker said. Asked for his comments on Mr Walker’s allegations, Sir Guy said that he wondered whether Mr Walker had based his remarks on the full report, or the summary which had been made public. In the summary it had been necessary to remove a lot of the detail contained in the full report because of the need to maintain confidentiality, Sir Guy said. He was not obliged to report back to the departments.

The Lake Alice controversy is just a symptom of the deficiency in New Zealand's mental health services, according to the director of Wellington Hospital’s psychiatric unit (Professor R. J. Roberts). Professor Roberts, who was consulted by Sir Guy in the making of the report, said that New Zealand’s psychiatric facilities provided only a token service.

“Compared with any other country I have practised in or studied in, we have only a skeleton service,” he said. “If you look at the number of child psychiatrists in New Zealand, there are five for the whole of New Zealand, or one for every 500,000 people. There should be one for every 50.000.”

The child psychiatrist at Lake Alice was the only person of his speciality serving a population of 150,000, Professor Roberts said.

He said that the best thing that could come out of the Ombudsman’s report would be if people became “sensitised” to the deficiencies of the service, and the need for resources of all kinds to be made available. Professor Roberts said that he agreed with the Ombudsman that there was usually “no justification” in psychiatric treatment to use unmodified Electro Convulsive Therapy.